Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[WelshMegalodon]

TBH, I actually think the idea of putting power ups in off-the-beaten-track areas as a crutch to lesser players is a wonderful design compromise that I completely respect. As long as I have options to play a game in a way that I think is interesting, that's fine with me.

it is almost without exception that this harms the game's focus and design when having to account for players getting these things. putting stuff in your game that should be ignored to play the game as intended is typically not a good move.

Prince of Persia (and, incidentally, Strider Hiryuu 2) both hide health pickups and extends (extra health in the case of the former) in areas that diverge from the main route. Would you say that this design choice makes them less focused?

Oh, and speaking as someone who's beat Kagami no Daimeikyuu over a dozen times, gotten 100%, cleared the Boss Rush mode, etc.,... now that you mention it, the game does feel lacking in direction. I think it handles well, though, perhaps due to there being less slowdown. Fusion also handles well (glad to see BIL agrees with me here).

[__SKYe]

Got a bit of an update on my Final Fight quest.

Managed to get the 1CC in Final Fight One (GBA) with Z-Guy on Hard.
Now, this isn't as nice as I'd like, because Z-Guy is quite overpowered in this game. Also managed to get the clear with 5 lives in stock, so it's not too shabby, for now.

Honestly, juggling a bunch of enemies from side to side, while avoiding hits from the ones behind you, at the last possible moment, has gotta be one of the most exhilarating experiences in video gaming history... Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it is very thrilling when you pull this kinda stuff off.

But that aside, this port gets significantly harder than the SFC's 3 enemies max.
Honestly, it's like a whole new experience, if you haven't played it, or come from the SFC port.

Having played several ports of the game, I have to say this is my favourite.
Controls are flawless, and even during segments where there are 6 enemies + 2/3 items on screen, it runs pretty much without any slowdown whatsoever.

Revisited the Sega CD port for the first time in a long while, and was pretty dissapointed.
Graphics and animations are quite good, and apart from the limited color palette, it is the better looking port of the game (bar the X68000 and modern ports, of course). Audio-wise, it is also quite good, with a remixed soundtrack with a more rockish vibe.
If there's one downside to the soundtrack, is that it doesn't loop properly. Rather the song plays until the end, and after a few seconds of silence, it starts playing again. Not THAT bad, but it's kinda weird and not really cool.
The gameplay however, is where it falls short, for me.
It's not the actual gameplay or controls themselves (the moveset is exactly the same and enemies behave the same way, etc), but rather, your attacks come out slower than they should.
This may seem like a minor issue, but it makes a hard game like this one, even harder. Pulling the last-hit-throw consistently, for example, is quite harder than in other ports.

Now that I've revisited it, I have to admit that this is one port that I probably won't ever try to clear, as it just doesn't feel right for me.

Also, since I'm talking about the series, played Final Fight 2 (SFC) for the first time in a while, and managed to get to the last stage, very near the last boss.
I wasted a few lives throughout, because I didn't had a fresh idea on the game (it's really been a while). I'd normally do better, and usually reach the last boss.

It did remind me of how much I prefer the original game to this one, though.
The visuals are quite a bit worse. The game uses this brownish palette throughout, that looks really drab.
The stages aren't that good looking overall, and the enemies are quite too. The audio also doesn't quite reach the quality of the original.
It's far from a bad game, but it doesn't get anywhere near the original.

[Vludi]

I did a small overview of the ports some months ago that may interest you.

Final Fight comparison:

-X68000: This one is almost arcade perfect except for one thing, there are only 4 enemies on screen, while the arcade has +8, some fewer barrels too. Also the music has slightly higher pitch and the voice samples interrupt, but they are minor issues.

-Mega CD: This port is pretty similar to the X68k one but with one major gameplay flaw that is the slower combo speed, and other minor gameplay oddities (e.g. no cooldown for Haggar's throw, buggy suplex on Poison). Presentation-wise it's pretty good in backgrounds/sprites/animation except for the duller colors of the MD, it also added time attack mode and an arranged soundtrack. A good accurate port overall but the combo speed issue can be annoying.

-SNES: This "port" is so inaccurate to the arcade that I'd call it Final Fight lite. Enemy distribution is wrong appearing in different locations and quantity, AI of enemies/bosses are pretty off, bosses have much longer invincibility wake-up, weird damage balance in some enemies, 3 enemies on screen with no objects and so on. Presentation-wise it's also quite downgraded: worse sprites, half of the animation is cut, the backgrounds were redrawn for the worse missing a lot of detail, many voice samples missing. Then you have the popular problems: missing Guy, no co-op and no level 4; you can play as guy in Final Fight Guy but it's equally disappointing, you can't even wall-jump on all the walls/objects like the arcade.

-GBA: This one is just an improved version of the SNES port, it has more enemies on screen (6), added Industrial Area + Guy and restored voice samples, but otherwise it's just as inaccurate to the arcade in gameplay/graphics. I also found it badly balanced when playing on higher difficulties, the SNES port's difficulty was rebalanced to be challenging even with 3 enemies on screen, this version has 6 enemies but with nothing changed from the SNES version, so it's tough but probably for the wrong reasons

Basically the Nintendo ports are "inspired" in Final Fight while the 68k/Sega CD are proper ports of the arcade.

[kitten]

Prince of Persia (and, incidentally, Strider Hiryuu 2) both hide health pickups and extends (extra health in the case of the former) in areas that diverge from the main route. Would you say that this design choice makes them less focused?

prince of persia, yes, to a very serious degree. i dislike most western games from that era, however, and pretty much all cinematic platformers. the fascination with smooth animations leads to much poorer combat and platforming than in comparable games from the time from japan.

strider 2 i've not played in long enough to confirm, but i remember feeling it was very unfocused.

extending health on alternate paths, especially, is something i feel slowly starts to unravel the design of the game. encounters become balanced around the possibility of having those, and are usually too easy with everything possible or too unfair/unfocused with none of them. this, in very obvious ways i shouldn't need to explain, causes the designer to have significantly more trouble creating a satisfying challenge.

i feel health bars are a dangerous enough thing to put into most classic action games, because it gives the designers an excuse for a lot of stuff to cheaply hit you or damage values to get out of control. most castlevania games eventually become 4 hits = death, so what is even the point of the 16 bars? you can typically get much more refined action out of either removing health bars or having them be much smaller and focused, so that you design your game around all hits being more important and calculated. castlevania basically does that, and is a reason why i like it. gimmick also starts you with two hits, and has health increasing potions out in the open at certain points to increase to four, which suggests a carefully designed pacing (which you could still potentially disrupt a bit by exploiting enemies to drop healing potions, but how to reliably do that is a pretty unknown quirk to its design to most and i'm okay with a tiny bit of randomness and good or bad "luck" affecting the run of a game). it is much easier to create focus around accounting for the possibility of a player making a couple mistakes, rather than a dozen.

rockman games i feel push the line by having such an enormous health bar (and even random enemy drops that can contain health), but are carefully designed enough around their hazards and enemies to have a well-designed, tug-of-war health pacing between you and the enemies (the ninja warriors again is very responsible about its health bar, too). extends and health restores are more or less exclusively shown on the screen, and are fun little detours with an extra hazard for the player to wrestle with (or can be safely ignored). either way, good pacing, no wandering. a lot of the "fun" of these games is getting unlucky with enemy drops, and then having to dynamically adapt to a poor roll. it keeps from repeat plays being too samey - a benefit to difficult-to-control variables and one of the key draws to roguelikes. this does lead to a slightly lower capacity for focused action, and is part of why mega man is a bit better as a slightly easier game than some comparable action games from the time. i believe hyper-difficult romhacks for the game completely destroy its finer points, and that you cannot satisfyingly push mega man to extremes that some other action games can reach. also, as already mentioned in the mega man 9 criticisms, i do find e-tanks to be a very weak and poor point of design worth criticizing the game over.

rockman zero not only has to wrestle with the above problems with having a health bar, but the potential for your health bar to effectively quadruple in size and your damage resistance to be doubled (essentially roughly 8x starting health) and have any-time-you-want health restores, as well as the potentiality for you to have earned certain new attacks and gotten new weapons and gotten new elemental modifier for those weapons. there are numerous other values and modifiers, as well. if one were to consider that the "true" way the game is balanced is by your absolute base, then there are a completely staggering number of accommodations to poorer players that radically alter the game's effective difficulty and method of most efficient play (and completely confuse better players as to how they're supposed to even play). the ranking system also ranks for your time and damage taken, but also for enemies killed! are you supposed to go quickly and skip enemies or stop and kill them? is stylishly taking damage to go quicker the wrong way to play, considering the game rewards you for kills and taking no damage? again a reminder, but poor rank effects other types of gain, too, and it averages your rank over the game. there is a deeply confusing mess of feedback for what the balancing is based around, and as someone who has played it in most conceivable ways, selectively ignoring different parts of the design, i've found satisfaction in precisely none of these methods. the over-accommodation hurts it as both a "hardcore" and "casual" experience. that is, barring zx, which ditched a lot of this stuff and as a result felt like it had more focused action (still had many of it own problems, of course).

i feel it is possible to use these complex, added variables responsibly, but each one has a powerful, corrupting influence that must be designed through careful consideration. games that deal in great deals of these variables often exclusively deal with them. to bring it back to roguelikes, this is why their action is usually not skill-based, but instead deals with management of these types of things near-exclusively. it further complicates things when your play can add or subtract these variables over its length, and becomes an even further mess to design around. i believe this forum probably sweepingly agrees that most modern 2d titles are polluted with overt amounts of this kind of stuff and unenjoyable to play (i think it's a conservative estimate to say that at least 75% of the discussed content in this thread is pre-playstation), but i believe games started being influenced by this kind of stuff even in much earlier generations. again, these kinds of design are not certain damnation and can be interesting in moderation and with careful consideration, but are usually handled with the grace of grabbing a radioactive material with a paper towel and swearing to everyone you know what you're doing. the more of them a game has, the more likely it is that these variables got outside of the designers' hands.

[NYN]

Yeah, Mighty Final Fight is a fantastic game for the NES, and most definitely worth a try.
Didn't know the cart was that expensive though.

it also got rereleased in the US on the gba via a small collection... i think that's still common to find.

That would be the Capcom Mini Mix.
It's a 3 in 1 cart with Mighty Final Fight, Bionic Commando and Strider in their western 8-bit appearance.

The instruction booklet reads:

From what we saw of the package, the NES emulation looks pretty complete. Plus, Strider and Bionic Commando are both NES classics. Mighty Final Fight? Not so much. But hey, two out of three ain't bad.

Dunno, but I find that remark kinda fun. For the manual anyway.

[Sumez]

i feel health bars are a dangerous enough thing to put into most classic action games, because it gives the designers an excuse for a lot of stuff to cheaply hit you or damage values to get out of control. most castlevania games eventually become 4 hits = death, so what is even the point of the 16 bars? you can typically get much more refined action out of either removing health bars or having them be much smaller and focused, so that you design your game around all hits being more important and calculated. castlevania basically does that, and is a reason why i like it. gimmick also starts you with two hits, and has health increasing potions out in the open at certain points to increase to four, which suggests a carefully designed pacing (...). it is much easier to create focus around accounting for the possibility of a player making a couple mistakes, rather than a dozen.

As much as I love the Rockman series, I always felt like the Mario games were the best example of how to do this, albeit not the best game to actually showcase the effect, considering they rarely get truly challenging. (but then again, part of that is exactly due to the health system - it's so much fun to go for a no-powerup run)

Basically starting you out as a 1 hit point wonder and, similarly to how Gimmick does it, incorporate the extra hit point into the level design. The game can give it to the player right at the beginning, or they can hide it to make the first part more challenging (or because it's already so easy it would offset the balance). It's a good way to balance the difficulty, and allowing the player to take two hits before death adds some leeway to avoid the game getting frustrating without allowing the sloppiness that a full health bar typically does.
I also like the idea of awarding the player further for being able to keep the powerup until the next powerup, although the fire flower is a bit overpowered. If your game has a scoring system, this would be a very obvious place to add something though.

[kitten]

As much as I love the Rockman series, I always felt like the Mario games were the best example of how to do this, albeit not the best game to actually showcase the effect, considering they rarely get truly challenging. (but then again, part of that is exactly due to the health system - it's so much fun to go for a no-powerup run)

yeah, i do feel like mario handles this very well. makaimura works similarly and i think it's a good system. i still consider the first and third mario games to be among the best of all time (smb 2[jp] is a bit too filled with cruelty and trial-and-error), by the way. 3 is a very good marriage of kirby-esque playground design and earlier smb1 marathon design. it is always a bit funny to me that people flip their fucking lid over 1-hit deaths in something like contra when mario will kill you nearly just as easily!! i very sincerely think the first mario brothers game is harder than contra but that neither game is particularly hard, honestly.

- - - - - -

also!!!

i just played through "normal" on wild guns reloaded and managed to do a 1cc on my first play. i don't know for absolute certain that i would necessarily consider this game harder. certain bits are a bit easier, actually, because of slightly reduced health or more generous enemy spawns. the 2nd segment of the final level has its difficulty SIGNIFICANTLY reduced by only having a single tri-shooter arm come down at a time, and by having their respawn time be longer. that's arguably the most difficult portion of the entire game, honestly, and that's a really big change. some of the added difficulty comes in via the new content (that bull-looking boss is weirdly tough and has too much health for how annoying he is to hit), but i feel like the vast majority of it comes from the game now being in widescreen. the distance from one end of the screen to the other is tremendously lengthened, and i feel like this is seriously to the game's detriment. any enemy that makes you move left to right a lot becomes very difficult to aim at (the mid-boss in the ragged coat with robot parts, who is near human height, becomes MUCH more obnoxious because of this, and that bull is a serious bastard because of it). it is very weird how frequently modern games do not consider how much widescreen changes their mechanics!

i would honestly consider this a pretty significant fault. the game is still very good fun and sticks to its principles, which i heavily admire, but that change is a really annoying thing to deal with and seriously impacts your ability to quickly aim. i also dislike some of the aesthetic changes, especially a few of the music tracks - i don't know what the flying fuck they did to the character select music, but it is now AWFUL! some of the new or updated sprites are great, though, and not all of the updated music is bad. i miss the bonus stages a bunch, they were a nice breather and silly distraction for a quick extend (you seem to be able to make more points in-stage to make up for this). i'm a bit ticked off that normal difficulty no longer has the canyon, which was my favorite stage in the original (mostly for its 2nd segment and how beautifully and subtly it used parallax).

i would say that this update is pretty decent and has some cool new stuff, but not that it is essential. it's just a neat little thing. i gladly bought it to support natsume and the wild guns devs still getting to do stuff i just don't think it beats out the original, which is still going to be what i go back to, in the future.

[Sumez]

What do you think makes Mega Man 9 worse than the NES games? I've always felt like its bosses (who all have properly dodgeable patterns and are fun to fight even with the buster, something I don't think the NES games nailed) and weapons (all of which are actually useful) put it soundly above the originals.

I think Kitten already explained most of the issues, but I would like to point out that I absolutely love every one of the NES Mega Rockman games (with only the first being noticeably weaker than the rest of the bunch), while I'm not sure I'd even consider 9 or 10 good games. I guess if you master them and know exactly what to do, they can be fun to run through, but the process of beating them in the first place is just absolutely frustrating.
They are just extremely poorly paced out and designed in general. The levels drag on for ages compared to the sizable length of the orignals, and rely on trial-and-error deathtraps to force the player to "git gud" in the most fake way possible. A good example of this is the "vanish blocks". These were a mild annoyance in some of the older Rockman games, but if you could learn their pattern you could easily breeze through them, although every single game in the series gave you an item to bypass the few segments that actually had them (which became more and more sparse as the series progressed). Not so in 9 - it has a TON of sections with these blocks, places them in ways that makes them almost impossible to bypass using items, drag on forever, and will mostly punish you with instant death for failing one jump (where most classic rockman games would initially put them as mere obstacles and not add the bottomless pit until the final segment). That is simply not fun to play, and there's a lot of this in the game. Kitten pointed out the flower boss which I agree with completely - it's a pain to fight, it's simply not "fun", which a game like this should be, first and foremost.

Basically the classic Rockman games didn't fully perfect their design until the third game, making 3 and 4 the best designed games in the series in my opinion, and two of the absolutely finest game on the NES - Rockman 9 and 10 seem to intentionally forget every good design pattern that was learned by the original six games, which is absolutely baffling. Just because you're "retro", you don't have to be inane.

[Sumez]

personally, the only sunsoft games i would consider masterpieces (or 4/4 star games) are trip world, gimmick, and battle formula. i say this as a very big sunsoft fan. i will make this forum play battle formula if it kills me, and they will all recoil and go "kitten, what the fuck are you thinking?" and i will have made myself even more sad and alone.

hebereke is pretty good, though! maybe even great! it also thoroughly trounces metafight/blaster master's fumblings as an exploration game, as far as i'm concerned. there are potions that you can manually consume in the game, iirc, sumez. taking them after you get a heart tank will allow your health to go over the previous maximum. there's a potion near o-chan's segment (where you gotta freeze guys over lava) that will restore you completely to maximum. hebereke is by no means a tough game, but i'm a little surprised you didn't figure this out, i imagine it made a couple of bosses a little more annoying.

For the record, I only gave Hebereke a 6/10 on the chart that I'm using (here's a list of them all, but it's in Danish). That said, that's a very "global" chart, that takes all kinds of extranous details into consideration, basically only awarding 10/10 to the best games ever, which may be for a number of reasons aside from simply tight action gameplay and replayability (otherwise both Daimakaimura and RI would have been guaranteed 10s), so I'm sure you will disagree with most of the list. One thing I need to point out with that standard that I'm following, is that 6/10 is still a good game, while 5 is average. You need to drop below that to be classified as "bad". There are many simple things Hebereke could have done to become a 7 or even a 8, mostly taking more cues from Gimmick would have benefitted greatly (which is why I lament that we never saw a true sequel, since I'm sure it would have it), considering the depth of its control and subtle but immensely detailed world building. A slightly higher challenge would probably have been welcome, too.
All that aside, I still find that Hebereke has enough unique quirks to be considered a masterpiece. I bought Super Spy Hunter last year btw (Battle Formula is 2expensive4me), so I'll give it a spin soon. I'm notoriously horrible at NES shooters though, so I don't know if I'll be able to judge it properly.

As for the potions, yeah I found those. But each only fill one health container, and you start out with what is essentially an empty health container. Health drops from enemies are extremely rare and only add 2/50 each, so they would rarely account for more than my occasional fumble. The potions only respawn if you game over, so the only way I could have filled my health all the way up would be by gathering all of them without taking any hits inbetween (at which point you probably don't even need the extra health containers anyway). Add that they are all hidden in chests, so if I already had one potion in stock, it would just override the one I had, which is something that happened a lot.
So the only way more than one extra health container can possibly be useful as far as I see it, is if you could somehow fill your entire health somewhere, which is apparently possible according to you? I must have missed that one. Are you referring about the room behind a door that you need to bomb a wall to get to? Or the other lava section in the mines?

I also didn't realise it was possible to freeze the enemies.... I guess that would have made those lava enemy-jumping sections a lot easier :3
That lack of health was only really an issue with the final boss. All the other bosses are pretty easy.

[Sumez]

yeah, i do feel like mario handles this very well. makaimura works similarly and i think it's a good system. i still consider the first and third mario games to be among the best of all time (smb 2[jp] is a bit too filled with cruelty and trial-and-error), by the way. 3 is a very good marriage of kirby-esque playground design and earlier smb1 marathon design. it is always a bit funny to me that people flip their fucking lid over 1-hit deaths in something like contra when mario will kill you nearly just as easily!! i very sincerely think the first mario brothers game is harder than contra but that neither game is particularly hard, honestly.

When was the last time you played SMB2j? I feel like that game is getting a lot of undeserved flak. It's not a "licensed Kaizo Mario", it's obviously designed by talented Nintendo level designers.
It's not even horribly difficult. If you like challenging Famicom games, SMB2j should be right up your alley, and it is still much, MUCH easier than any Holy Diver, or even Ninja Gaiden. Like all the best challenging platformers it takes a bit of practice though. Knowledge of the levels makes the game flow amazingly, but even as you are learning them the game remains highly entertaining. There is an incredible sense of flow to the level design that you don't find in a lot of other Mario games, and if you're prepared for what is coming, you can usually keep the run button held most of the time as stage hazards such as pirahna plants etc. will be timed exactly to your favor. It's simply a blast!
If you go back and play it again with an open mind, I think you could appreciate it more - I feel like it's a game that should be up your alley. It's the closest we will ever come to an actual challenging Mario game though, and it should be cherished for that. While I agree that Contra's difficulty is immensely overrated, I don't see how you could ever compared the first SMB to it - SMB is an incredibly easy game designed with kids and families in mind (which doesn't keep it from being an extremely good game, though).
People get scared by the one hit kills in Contra because they will happen to them constantly when they don't have experience with the game, while SMB will allow you to jump around and have a lot of fun at your own pace before something potentially kills you. The pace of the two games is very different.

[Immryr]

I wouldn't worry about kitten disagreeing with how you rate games, if you read his backloggery I'm sure you will disagree with a lot there. He gave ninja gaiden 1 star, describing it as a miserable parade of terrible levels littered with wretchedly designed enemies, for instance!

[Sumez]

I'm not worrying I was just prefacing that my taste in games is a lot broader than what is being discussed in this thread.
I gave Assassin's Creed 2 a 9/10 and I stand by that.

[kitten]

That said, that's a very "global" chart, that takes all kinds of extranous details into consideration, basically only awarding 10/10 to the best games ever, which may be for a number of reasons aside from simply tight action gameplay and replayability (otherwise both Daimakaimura and RI would have been guaranteed 10s)

i am very surprised to see such an incredibly high rating for symphony of the night. that game is extremely sloppy. works more as a playground than anything else, but all the cool toys are hidden by shitty, cruel drop rates and you'd never find most without going ridiculously out of your way. i actually give it a 4/4 star rating, myself, but it is my most 2nd most tenuous 4 star, next to tail concerto (because i am a fucking sap). in spite of my (many, many) complaints with it, it's just so goddamn pretty and filled with neat stuff and excellent atmosphere. i often consider dropping it to 3 stars because of how shitty the reverse castle is, though, and how despite the game having five million cool enemies, it litters the reverse castle's hallways with almost nothing but goddamn jack o' bones, nova skeletons, and that weird pincer hazard.

i feel like nearly everything in that game that i like was by effort of the artists, and that iga had very little to do with it

so I'm sure you will disagree with most of the list.

whether i (or anyone else) does or doesn't shouldn't really matter much, honestly. there would be things i might press you to reevaluate or be in strong opposition to your opinion of, but your list is your list.

i have an explanation for my 4-star on my backloggery.com page

Spoiler

explanation for my 4-star scale:

1 star - bad, awful, or just poorly made. may not necessarily be entirely irredeemable or without charming elements, but of a decidedly low, disappointing, or incredibly mediocre quality. not necessarily unenjoyable, though very likely to be.

2 star - decent, middling, or leaning toward bad. perhaps still an enjoyable game, but one i'd not consider "good" with some notable caveats reducing the overall quality.

3 star - good, or even great. an overall positive experience with a couple of caveats or even a game just short of being excellent.

4 star - excellent, or on the upper end of greatness. very enjoyable and/or very well made. selectively awarded to truly superior craftsmanship and deeply entertaining experiences.

and here's my rating spread:



i feel like people should always slant toward more at the bottom, less at the top, as to make distinguishing the better games more nuanced and meaningful. there are four thousand flavors of slop, but they're all slop.

All that aside, I still find that Hebereke has enough unique quirks to be considered a masterpiece. I bought Super Spy Hunter last year btw (Battle Formula is 2expensive4me), so I'll give it a spin soon. I'm notoriously horrible at NES shooters though, so I don't know if I'll be able to judge it properly.

i don't own a battle formula cart, but i prefer to call it that, anyway. it's one of my GOATs, so i really want to get a legit copy of battle formula, even though it is a ridiculous vanity purchase for a person like me. battle formula is just a cooler name . my idea of "masterpiece" only applies to games that go through my rigorous standards and come out with very little complaint (i wouldn't even give it to all my 4-star rated games, meaning i'd apply it to less than 100 titles), but that's just how i personally use the word. i appreciate the clarification on how you mean it!

Add that they are all hidden in chests, so if I already had one potion in stock, it would just override the one I had, which is something that happened a lot.

which would let the heart tanks become useful in just using one and filling above the max.

and, yeah, i mean the ultra potion is in the lava section in the mines. i think it's on the same "screen" that the lava passage is over. i think you have to freeze enemies and climb upward to get it.

I wouldn't worry about kitten disagreeing with how you rate games, if you read his backloggery I'm sure you will disagree with a lot there. He gave ninja gaiden 1 star, describing it as a miserable parade of terrible levels littered with wretchedly designed enemies, for instance!

she

When was the last time you played SMB2j? I feel like that game is getting a lot of undeserved flak. It's not a "licensed Kaizo Mario", it's obviously designed by talented Nintendo level designers.

it's been a long time! i might re-evaluate it, sometime. picking up famicom carts of all 3 mario games has been on my to-do list for a long time.

People get scared by the one hit kills in Contra because they will happen to them constantly when they don't have experience with the game, while SMB will allow you to jump around and have a lot of fun at your own pace before something potentially kills you. The pace of the two games is very different.

i still think the gulf in terror in how people approach smb1 versus how they approach contra is completely hilarious. mario doesn't even let you continue, and contra plops you right back in the field when you lose a heck. even with the 30 lives code, contra is still regarded as hyper difficult and the very first mario isn't even frequently considered hard, at all.

[Immryr]

sorry!

[Sumez]

i am very surprised to see such an incredibly high rating for symphony of the night. that game is extremely sloppy.

Okey

works more as a playground than anything else

I absolutely love a well done playground. There are a billion games that try to do that, and very few that do it well. I think the game could be improved on by giving it something a bit closer to classic Castlevania challenging gameplay, but I don't feel that lacking it works to its detriment. I consider the ClassicVanias and MetroidVanias two completely separate series.

but all the cool toys are hidden by shitty, cruel drop rates and you'd never find most without going ridiculously out of your way.

I find that the "shitty drop rates" is one thing that helps make each run unique. Where Super Metroid affects the experience of the game by making everything so obscure that going in blind it feels almost random where you end up. In SotN getting different drops has almost the same effect as finding different secrets, encouraging you to try out different equipment that may affect the way you play the game. The game is entirely open for a billion different ways to be played, and I never tire of replaying it. Sure you can break open the game by farming for a crissaegrim, but you can also play the game by abiding to what you are giving, or intentionally using crappy-yet-fun weapons.
On a personal level I think I like Castlevania 3 better, but I feel like SotN is a masterpiece on a different level. It is always difficult to compare games with such wildly different qualities.

i feel like nearly everything in that game that i like was by effort of the artists, and that iga had very little to do with it

I'm sure Iga is almost as overrated as Inafune.

it's been a long time! i might re-evaluate it, sometime. picking up famicom carts of all 3 mario games has been on my to-do list for a long time.

It's a disk game. It's basically my one reason for getting an FDS.

i still think the gulf in terror in how people approach smb1 versus how they approach contra is completely hilarious. mario doesn't even let you continue, and contra plops you right back in the field when you lose a heck. even with the 30 lives code, contra is still regarded as hyper difficult and the very first mario isn't even frequently considered hard, at all.

That's because Contra IS super difficult when you're just starting out, while the first Mario really isn't hard, at all.
Even if Contra becomes extremely manageable with practice, it's still a constant onslaught. Compare to Mario where you can progress in the game at your own leisure, and are never really pressured by anything. It's a much, much lighter game to approach casually. It's a home console game at heart.

[Squire Grooktook]

I find that the "shitty drop rates" is one thing that helps make each run unique

This reminds me, I was actually toying with the idea of a single sitting pseudo-roguelike esque challenge run of Aria of Sorrow, based on mandatorily switching souls every time you gain one. Was inspired by something Blinge said to me during his playthrough.

My rules were gonna be something like:

-Every time you pick up a (non mandatory for progression) soul, you must switch to it. Mandatory souls (Undine, Flying Armor) can be swapped in and out freely with your current soul.
-You can switch to a different (non mandatory) soul freely by permanently giving up one and never using it again (write it down in notepad or something)
-You may use recovery items, but you may not use save points to recover or purchase from hammer. Boss kills and discovered health ups only (emphasis on resource management).
-Game must be cleared with true end in under 3 hours (if that's too easy: 2 hours). No save point use at all.

Been meaning to give it a shot when I have some time to relax and see how it feels. Emergent gaming lmao.

[BIL]

*~Magical Vacation Dracula~* is a cluttery mess, but as a big sparkly toybox it is phenomenally diverting. I replay it like once every two years and always spend a solid week messing around with its million little details, while taking in the luxuriant production.

Will always sting a tad, that such superb handling and collision wasn't put to work in a more challenging game, but I prefer Order of Ecclesia for that. Also I like intentionally pissing off certain bosses for a little more pressure, eg stripping Legion to the core then dodging his homing lazors.

IGA is a jackass. 凸(｀ω´メ) I liked him better before he started droning on about his "battle of 1999" bullshit, when he was fighting a much worthier cause: a week's groceries for $19.99!



^ back when IGA was good! :O

No, I'm sure he's a great bro, but I can't forgive him for slagging off Castlevania 64 while nuzzling DMC's hindquarters circa 2003, then turning in the atrociously lazy Lament of Innocence. Another superb engine lacking a game! That ultra-responsive combat and CV64's towering athletic platforming would've worked great. Unfortunately they were apparently restricted to a Wolfenstein 3D map editor. 3:

An old internet acquaintance who worked at Konami Hawaii had a great anecdote about the office being previewed the retail version of LOI, asking if it was some sort of early demo with actual stage design pending, and getting a most unfriendly look! This chap was pretty sound, but regardless it's too perfect to not believe. ;3

[Immryr]

i've tried to get into SotN a bunch of times and always just got bored at some point and stopped playing. i don't think it has much going for it other than its presentation.

i've been thinking about what makes super metroid so great recently, particularly what makes the exploration feel so good, and it's quite hard to pin down. in particular it's very odd that a game where exploration and finding secrets is such a huge part of the game would have markers on the map for every item / secret. you would think this would seriously detract from the enjoyment of exploring, but it doesn't, and if they weren't there all secrets in the game would come down to basically shooting every wall tile in the whole game and hoping something is there. isn't this bad design? why does it work?

i think quite a lot of the joy comes from the amazing freedom you get with your basic movement set + ball + bomb.

[Sumez]

This reminds me, I was actually toying with the idea of a single sitting pseudo-roguelike esque challenge run of Aria of Sorrow, based on mandatorily switching souls every time you gain one. Was inspired by something Blinge said to me during his playthrough.

Reminds me of PJ's "all weapons" run of Chohmakaimura. For a game that easily grows stale once you learn every pattern, that's a fun way to shake things up (and mitigate one of the biggest complaints with the series, too). Very entertaining run, if only for PJ's sociable attitude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti ... dHsR6e0nlA

[Sumez]

i've been thinking about what makes super metroid so great recently, particularly what makes the exploration feel so good, and it's quite hard to pin down. in particular it's very odd that a game where exploration and finding secrets is such a huge part of the game would have markers on the map for every item / secret. you would think this would seriously detract from the enjoyment of exploring, but it doesn't, and if they weren't there all secrets in the game would come down to basically shooting every wall tile in the whole game and hoping something is there. isn't this bad design? why does it work?

Because the obscurity of Super Metroid doesn't come from the location of items (they are basically everywhere anyway), but from where you can actually go. Notice that the map doesn't reveal the location of doors and other hidden passageways, and finding these is all up to the player. And they can be hidden in a myriad of ways meaning you can probably replay the game multiple times without ever discovering several of them. Meanwhile another player might find them in their first go and never discover the ones that you found. And since the game is basically based entirely around discovering "secrets" (many mandatory sections and items are hidden by what any other game would describe as such), that means the game will always come across as a bit of an exciting mystery when you go in blind.
The joy of Super Metroid does not come from 100%'ing it. It comes simply from exploring and going with what you find. Alternatively, going for minimal runs adds an extra layer of appreciation. I don't "speedrun" the game, but I like going for runs where I skip both of the "optional" bosses and all the energy tanks that I feel like I can do without, completing the game as "effeciently" as possible. Makes the game endlessly replayable even when you know all the secrets.

[Squire Grooktook]

This reminds me, I was actually toying with the idea of a single sitting pseudo-roguelike esque challenge run of Aria of Sorrow, based on mandatorily switching souls every time you gain one. Was inspired by something Blinge said to me during his playthrough.

Reminds me of PJ's "all weapons" run of Chohmakaimura. For a game that easily grows stale once you learn every pattern, that's a fun way to shake things up (and mitigate one of the biggest complaints with the series, too). Very entertaining run, if only for PJ's sociable attitude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti ... dHsR6e0nlA

"This is problematic"

Ha ha, great stuff.

[BIL]

<3 PJ. One of my favourite commentators at explaining stuff to the noobs. :3

ALL ABOUT I-FRAMES aka LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR - "This is where people will accuse you of using a Gameshark."

[kitten]

I find that the "shitty drop rates" is one thing that helps make each run unique.

i feel like the game could quadruple the drop rate on everything, completely across the board, and it would do nothing but benefit the game and even the runs you describe. the drop rates are psychotically cruel for so, so many neat things, and i'd be encouraged to do more quick runs through the game if they weren't so bad. it is so easy to go through the entire game and miss all of the cool stuff, and some of the neatest weapons drop at like a 1% chance from enemies you'd kill maybe two times unless you were specifically farming them. even having played the game probably a dozen times, by now, i'd say i'd have not seen more than half of the game's neatest fun toys without doing a "get every single drop" run.

i love the game, i really do, but man, there are so many things wrong with it and so many little, easy things that could immediately improve it. i have never understood why iga doubled down on completely silly drop rates for every game he made after this.

if i hadn't done 100% runs in sotn, i think i'd appreciate it less, because there's so much neat stuff in there, as hidden as it is. on the other hand, despite having played super metroid probably just as much, i've never even started a 100% run, and i would say that made me enjoy it more.

It's a disk game. It's basically my one reason for getting an FDS.

o dam. man, i still want to get an FDS for bio miracle. T_T

That's because Contra IS super difficult when you're just starting out, while the first Mario really isn't hard, at all.

maybe i'm just biased because when i was really young i played with the code with my dad, but i used to play it over mario specifically because i felt it was easier. i think it was the first game i ever beat, too. using the code and still considering the game hyper difficult is a very bizarrely common perception, too. most people seem to use it their first time through and still somehow come out thinking it's harder than mario.

- - - - -

i also went and 1cc'd hard mode for wild guns: reloaded. man, both of the completely original stages are really damn cool and filled with unique and awesome content. i wish this had been a full sequel rather than an update, because one of the new levels is only on hard, and you have to replay three stages you've probably played to death at this point just to get that experience on your playthrough. i'm glad i got this even though i still prefer the original just for the new stuff and to show support, though. this is also a great game to recommend someone who doesn't emulate and can't afford the old game. some imported sprites work better in the new resolution than others, though.

one tiny little thing that weirds me out is when you fight the crab boss in the original, after beating him, all his legs fall down and are shown to be exploded at the joints, severing them. in the remake, when he falls, the leg parts still seem intact. that's just... kind of strange? seems like a weird oversight?

[Sumez]

I'm so glad Wild Guns Reloaded is a thing, even though I too would have preferred a real sequel. I hope the release was a success, and it's amazing to see that Natsume, as in "Natsume", still exist, and are still serious fun, and not just endless Harvest Moon rehashes. Hopefully we will see more classic 2D action games from them in the future. One can always dream.

On a side note, Kitten - I decided to create a Backloggery page because I find the idea interesting. But am I correct in that there's no way to import a full collection via some sort of data file? I have almost 2000 games, and I really don't feel like adding them all by hand. :S

[kitten]

IOn a side note, Kitten - I decided to create a Backloggery page because I find the idea interesting. But am I correct in that there's no way to import a full collection via some sort of data file? I have almost 2000 games, and I really don't feel like adding them all by hand. :S

nope, you are absolutely turbo-boned. it is hell. backloggery is really useful for someone as critically-oriented as me, but it is serious work. writing all my reviews and keeping things updated on there has almost been more trouble than it is worth, but only almost.

[FinalBaton]

Love SotN. Just get the classic-vania action style out of your head and enjoy SotN for what it is; an action RPG. An a fabulous one at that. With a map that opens up in a satisfying manner and is fun to navigate, with plenty of hidden rooms and little puzzles, responsive controls, and truly horryfing, gory, disturbing, METAL AS FUCK bosses


Now that is trve kvlt metal.

Oh, and as icing on the cake; Yamane-sensei graced the game with her beautiful yet strongly emotional music. And the game has very pretty character and monster sprites with nice animations. All this converges to forge a bona fide classic for the Sony Playstation. The game blew my mind in 1997 and I still love the heck outta it.

Also, lol BIL that supermarket chain is established (and omnipresent) here in Québec, so it particularly hit home with me. Nearly spit out my coffee

[BIL]

Interesting - they're well-established where I'm from too. Glad someone else recognised Igarashi-san's real contribution to modern living!

[Obscura]

i feel health bars are a dangerous enough thing to put into most classic action games, because it gives the designers an excuse for a lot of stuff to cheaply hit you or damage values to get out of control. most castlevania games eventually become 4 hits = death, so what is even the point of the 16 bars?

You may go down in four hits, but the bosses don't.

[__SKYe]

Just got the 1CC in Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-kun (FC).

Look at this beautiful friendship:


I set out to clear this one, because my experience with this genre seems to be slanted towards the Capcom games (more specifically, Final Fight and it's sequels ).

I thought of going straight to Double Dragon (and sequels), but since this is pretty much where it all started (and Kitten gave the recommendation), I chose to play this one.
For a game that pretty much invented the beat-em-up genre, it is pretty decent, but I want to start by saying (once again), that I'm not the biggest fan of Technos' gameplay style.

First of all, for someone coming from FF and the like, the 2 buttons to attack left & right were quite awkward at first. It took a while to actually remember to press the correct button to attack on the proper direction.
Second, and this is something I attribute to pretty much all the Technos games I played, this is the kind of game where trying to slug the enemy, hoping to get a combo going, will most likely get you pummeled.
After a while of trying several attacking styles, to see what worked, I ended up using Run+Attack almost exclusively.
Trying to punch an enemy head on, almost always ends up with your character being the one on the receiving end, and most of the time, jump kicks end up missing, because the enemies dodge.
Trying to attack the armed enemies head on, will get up pounded into the pavement too. Using this against the bosses, is even worse, as you'll just get wrecked.

So, in the end, the game becomes a matter of scoring a knockdown on any enemy, and Run+Attack him as he is getting up, scoring yet another knockdown. Rinse and repeat.
This kind of gameplay, although it requires more technical skills than it seems, is not something I consider very fun to do, as I needed to consistently and continually do this for the entire duration of the game.

The bike segments (both having to beat the bikers, and riding one. The latter isn't so bad, though), although definitely playable, are damn annoying, and I honestly don't get how someone thought, putting bike riders inside an apartment building was a good idea.

On the good side, the game looks nice (in typical Kunio-kun games fashion), and the enemy design variety is nice too. Having girls in school outfits beating the snot out of you with leather school bags, and whips, is pretty awesome. That and Misuzu, a hulk of a school girl, who I think, personally, is the most dangerous boss in the game (sans the final boss).
The music is something I actually really like too, as I think it really fits the game (and it's portrayed era).

Now about the Stage 4 (last stage).
I knew of this game before, but I hadn't played or seen any footage of it past the first level, so the maze on Stage 4 was a real surprise.
The vast majority of the time it took for me to get the 1CC was spent on this stage (and getting to it, after several game overs). However, for the most part, it was actually pretty fun to map out the maze on a sheet of paper, until I reached the last boss. Something I hadn't done in quite a long time, and most certainly something one wouldn't expect in a beat-em-up (at least I wouldn't).

Having played the SFC game of the same series (Shin Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-kun), I was very pleasantly surprised to see that, this is where most of the bosses/characters in that game come from.
Riki (the 1st boss in the FC game), is your partner in the SFC game. Shinji, Misuzu and Saru are all bosses in the SFC game as well.

On a final note, getting a 1LC is definitely possible, and I'm actually thinking of trying it. Also, despite what may be said, the game is quite generous, in that after every area you beat, you get your life restored fully, so as long as you survive each area without losing a life, you can count on getting a life refill.
This, coupled with the last stage's maze, also mean that it is possible to get whatever maximum score that is, because you can simply replay these areas, until you max out the counter (if you don't lose your lives, that is).

Well, I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll leave it at that.

I did a small overview of the ports some months ago that may interest you.
...
Basically the Nintendo ports are "inspired" in Final Fight while the 68k/Sega CD are proper ports of the arcade.

Yeah, it's pretty much like that, but I still find the GBA port superior to all others (bar the X68000), because, although it may not have the exact enemy formations as the arcade version, and although the difficulty is unbalanced (which I'll take your word for, because I haven't played much of the higher difficulties), it is the only one that plays pretty much as flawless as the original.
Every other port (again, bar the X68000 one) compromises the gameplay/controls in some way, so I'd take the GBA port over all others, except of course, for the original.

I understand, and respect, that people may not like those balancing changes in the GBA port, and that the graphics and sound aren't up to par with the other ports.
But I believe, if your looking for a port that will give a genuine taste as to how the original plays, then it is a very good one.

And, like you said, I was pretty disappointed with the Sega CD port, precisely because of that 'basic combo' flaw. It may seem minor, but when you play it, and especially if you come from playing the original (or a similar port), you'll definitely notice it, and it will most likely ruin your game.

That would be the Capcom Mini Mix.
It's a 3 in 1 cart with Mighty Final Fight, Bionic Commando and Strider in their western 8-bit appearance.

The instruction booklet reads:

From what we saw of the package, the NES emulation looks pretty complete. Plus, Strider and Bionic Commando are both NES classics. Mighty Final Fight? Not so much. But hey, two out of three ain't bad.

Dunno, but I find that remark kinda fun. For the manual anyway.

That is most definitely fun. I would never expect a quote like that in an instruction booklet.

One a more serious note, although I agree that Mighty Final Fight didn't indeed, reach 'Classic' status, it is by no means a lesser game than those two.
I, of course, agree that it doesn't hold a candle to the original, and if you base your opinion by comparing the two (or look at Mighty FF as nothing more than a downgrade of the original), I guess it doesn't look all that good.
But, with all honesty, if you give it a try, and keep in mind the other beat-em-ups in the system, I guarantee you'll probably find that it is, at least, one of the best on the platform.

[Vludi]

Yeah, it's pretty much like that, but I still find the GBA port superior to all others (bar the X68000), because, although it may not have the exact enemy formations as the arcade version, and although the difficulty is unbalanced (which I'll take your word for, because I haven't played much of the higher difficulties), it is the only one that plays pretty much as flawless as the original.
Every other port (again, bar the X68000 one) compromises the gameplay/controls in some way, so I'd take the GBA port over all others, except of course, for the original.

I understand, and respect, that people may not like those balancing changes in the GBA port, and that the graphics and sound aren't up to par with the other ports.
But I believe, if your looking for a port that will give a genuine taste as to how the original plays, then it is a very good one.

And, like you said, I was pretty disappointed with the Sega CD port, precisely because of that 'basic combo' flaw. It may seem minor, but when you play it, and especially if you come from playing the original (or a similar port), you'll definitely notice it, and it will most likely ruin your game.

I wouldn't say it plays "as flawless as the original" when it has all the issues I pointed out, stuff like the extra i-frames on bosses can be quite problematic. It's a matter of preference I guess, the Sega CD port is definitely more accurate overall but the combo issue may rub off some people (understandably so, but I can live with it), while the GBA port has smooth combos but inaccurate mechanics otherwise which I dislike as I'm used to the arcade, also don't like the tiny playscreen of the GBA at all. There is no doubt that the x68000 port is the best one however.